Abby and Timmy Part 3: Through the Autumn
by bob5691
Summary: Abby and Timmy part as friends, and she finds she has a pen-pal.  But she watches in alarm as events start to spin out of control for Timmy, and when he finally returns to town on tour, Abby finds herself about to confront a vicious female vampire.


Heading alone towards home, Abby sought to organize her thoughts, to understand exactly why she knew that she could not go with Timmy. Part of it, she knew, was her own fear: despite the promise of friendship, from a vampire boy who would never reject her because of what she was, it was too frightening to consider ripping herself out of her long routine of life with Thomas, and to leap into the unknown dangers of Timmy's world, a world of celebrity and publicity and (it seemed) constant risk of exposure.

_Look at me. I'm a vampire. Look at me_.

_He flies too close to the Sun. He will fall_.

Part of it was Thomas; he would think her temporarily insane, surely, smitten with an absurd crush wellling up from the young-girl part of her that she knew was still within her, unwilling to think of the practicalities of the situation.

_What's he going to do when someone notices, really notices, that he hasn't grown an inch in two years?_

And part of it, she had finally realized in a flash of insight in the long ride in the limousine, even as she enjoyed the smell and feel of the leather seats, the steady hum of tires on pavement, was that the acceptance Timmy offered her was not one that could truly bring her the happiness she longed for. She realized that Timmy accepted her _because_ she was a vampire, because he wanted the companionship of his 'own kind.'

_Compassion is a terrible thing for a vampire to feel_.

_But Abby, we _are _monsters_.

_I don't often meet others…like me_.

_Abby, we can be such good friends_.

And Abby realized that what she wanted more than anything was someone who could see her as a person first, as a girl, not as a monster. She could see that Timmy was not the cartoon monster that people made vampires into; he felt sympathy and compassion with humans, as she did, killing pained him, she could see that. But he had lived too long as a vampire;

_For a long time, I _was_ evil…I killed without remorse or regret_.

He was - what was the word, in those pop psychology books she sometimes read? - alienated from his human part. He accepted what he was in a way that she could not, and she did not want to give in to that, she couldn't, not yet, she wanted to believe it was possible to find someone who could care for her _despite_ what she was, not because of it. Someone who would see the human part of her as the biggest part, the most important part.

_Abby, you silly little girl_, her inner voice told her. _Where is this imaginary friend, who is going to see you as a girl, a person first, and not a monster, once they learn what you really are? __What a childish fantasy. _

When she arrived home, exhausted from the energy she had burned up in her travels of the last few days, Thomas was awake, and there was a jug of red liquid on the table. She asked no questions, but sat and drank and drank, and he watched without speaking until she was done, and pushed it aside. "Thank you", she said.

"So? Is he everything you hoped and wished he would be?"

She didn't like the tone of his voice, and almost made a sharp retort, but she did not have even the emotional energy for such a confrontation. Better to simply respond to it as an ordinary question.

"He knows he can't go on long as Timmy Valentine. And he doesn't care that people might start figuring it out, and come after him. He doesn't care. He thinks they can't hurt him, and I think he's wrong."

Thomas' expression softened a little, and she thought, _perhaps he doesn't want an argument either_.

"So - was I right, then? To tell you to ask?"

"Yes."

"What are you going to do now?"

"He asked me to go to Los Angeles with him, and said you could come too. We won't of course, " she continued as his mouth popped open to say something.

He paused a moment. "Well, good. I'm glad to hear it."

"But I am going back to see him, tomorrow. Just to spend a little more time. And to tell him in person. I feel like I owe him that."

Thomas didn't like that, that much was clear from the sour look on his face, but perhaps her assertion that they would not go had satisfied him. He took the jug, and headed towards the kitchen, to clean up for her. Like he always did.

The next night Abby found herself at Timmy's hotel door, no surreptitious climbs up the side of the hotel, no tricks; she simply wanted to see him, to talk, to spend what time she could. _When I tell him I'm not going, will he be angry? Will he decide he doesn't want to be my friend? We can still be friends if I don't go with him, right? _She had mentally rehearsed what she would say, over and over. _It's not practical, Thomas doesn't want it, I think it's too risky, you should be more careful… _And when the door opened, it was Rudy standing there.

"Good evening, Miss Abby. So good to see you. Timmy's asleep - please come in. He me to wait here in his room and let you in when you arrived."

"Asleep? Does he sleep much?"

"Very little. Just a few hours, every few days. He can sleep day or night now, so he usually just catches short naps from time to time. He's in the bedroom, but you can wait here in the stting room, if you like."

He exited the room, and she was alone. She sat down and was reaching for the TV remote when she saw one of Timmy's suitcases in the corner, open, with not clothes but an assortment of magazines and books inside. And something else…that looked like it might be a photo album or scrapbook. Her curiosity got the better of her, and she crossed over to the suitcase and picked it up, and took it back to the chair.

The front pages were filled with pictures, clippings, and concert programs from his career as Timmy. She flipped through them quickly, seeing nothing new here, nothing that could tell her more about him.

Then she came to pages of photos, mostly Timmy or Rudy or both of them, in various places - city streets, small houses, hiking trails, even (incredibly) beaches, both of them in swimsuits, and for a moment she longed for the normality that implied. _You are so lucky, Timmy, that the Sun can't hurt you now_. Then, further towards the back, the last few pages, she came to a newspaper clipping. It was from The Washington Post; the date was August 12, 1967.

_NO NEW LEADS IN SUMMER CAMP ATTACK_

_…a steady stream of parents is arriving at Camp Highlands and its sister camp, Camp Pocahontas, in the forests of Highland County, to take their children home following the brutal attack of two nights ago. Investigators said today that they are continuing to search for clues. The names of two of the victims, a 12-year-old boy who was killed and a 15-year-old girl who was hospitalized, have not yet been publicly released. Although there was no official comment, an anonymous source close to the investigation reported that the condition of the dead boy's body was 'gruesome.' He was reportedly disemboweled, and his body bore numerous other wounds that resembled claw marks, as if from an animal attack. The second victim, a 15-year-old girl hospitalized in critical condition, was described by the source as "shredded - it was like a tiger had clawed her."_

_No clues have emerged as to the whereabouts of the third and only named victim, 12-year-old Walter "Wally" Alvarez of Fairfax, Virginia. Alvarez is described as average height for a boy his age, with black hair, blue eyes, and a pale complexion. His name and description were publicly released soon after the attack in hopes that a member of the public might be able to report a sighting or other information. His adoptive parents, Ricky and Susan Alvarez, released a brief statement in which they explained that their son had been with them a brief time; praised his musical and singing talents; and explained that they had sent him to summer camp so that he "could relate better to boys his own age." The statement finished with an appeal for his safe return._

_Summer camp disaster, indeed, _she thought_. You weren't kidding, Timmy_.

Some more clippings and a few photos, Timmy at a different house and with different adults; then, there he was with Rudy. This one was from what appeared to be a local newspaper from Staten Island; the date was July 5, 1962. There was a picture of Rudy and Timmy, in what appeared to be a park. Rudy was sitting on a blanket, leaning back on his arms, a picnic basket next to him. Beside him stood Timmy, in a pair of shorts with front pockets and a t-shirt with an American flag printed on it; in his right hand was a sparkler, and he was smiling.

_FIRST FOURTH IN AMERICA_

_Recent Polish immigrant Rudy Lydick and his son Krzysztof enjoy the Light Up the Park celebration yesterday. Lydick expressed his happiness at being in America, with the freedom and opportunity it offered. When asked what he thought of the holiday, the younger Lydick said how much he looked forward to seeing the fireworks, and then sang a spontaneous - and very good - rendition of 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' which brought applause for nearby onlookers._

In the picture, the two of them could have been any of a million father-and-son pairs, and Abby suddenly felt a desperate need to know: _Did it ever feel like a real family, even for a little bit, for either of you? _And then: _Rudy, did you ever feel that you loved him? Loved your vampire "son"?_

On the last page there was a slightly blurry mimeograph on apparently cheap paper that appeared to be printed in German, although Abby knew little of that language. She could make out a date of 21.07.1947; European style it seemed, so it was from July, and maybe they had been having paper shortages after the war, there. She would have bet anything that 'Operahaus Thauberg' meant, well, an opera in a place called Thauberg. Further down there was a photo captioned 'Die Jungens der Operahaus.' Three boys in angel costumes stood side-by-side in the picture, wearing white robes, with shiny halos suspended above their heads and white feathered wings spreading out from their backs. The one on the left was Timmy Valentine. She looked below the picture; the name was Konrad Stoltz. There was nothing earlier in the album, and she remembered Rudy's story. Timmy must have started compliing these mementos after the war.

She finally stepped softly into the bedroom; a lamp was on, but even if it hadn't been, her superb night-vision would have let her clearly see Timmy lying on the bed. He was clothed, only his shoes off, and he lay utterly motionless, in the stillness of death. Because he _was_ dead, of course, and no muscle twitches or intake of breath or the slightest heartbeat would impart any movement to his still body.

Next to the bed was another suitcase, open, and she saw a model train track layout, with intersecting inner and outer loops. A control box was attached and a steam engine with several passenger cars was waiting motionless on the tracks. On the bed, Timmy was clutching a magazine, and she could see the title tilted towards her: _Model Railroader_.

A sudden wave of recognition swept over her, and she saw so much of herself in him, and her resolve not to go with him wavered. She looked at Timmy Valentine, who had once been Wally Alvarez, and Krzysztof Lydick, and Konrad Stolz, and Emilio the gypsy boy, and she understood more than, perhaps, she could have put into words. She saw that part of him was, and always would be, even after so many centuries of un-life, the child that had died on the streets of Pompeii. He had just been playing, a young boy with a delightful toy. She thought of her own collection of puzzles at home, how she could sit for hours with them, doing them over and over again, and still finding a simple pleasure in it that she could not find in any other way.

It was too much. She wanted to weep, and she did, sinking to the floor, and she felt a tear track down her face, and then another, and reached up with her fingertips. When she drew them away the dark crimson tears were smeared across them, and she wept some more, for what she had lost, and the trap in which she lived. Then Timmy was beside her; he had risen soundlessly, and knelt next to her.

"What's wrong, Abby?"

"Oh Timmy...it's all so unfair...what happened to you and me...why couldn't we have had real lives? Why couldn't we have grown up?"

"Abby." Then he leaned next to her, and put his arm around her, and she did the same to him. There was no physical warmth that they could draw from each other's bodies, but she felt warmed just the same, internally. After a few minutes she felt she had her composure back, and pulled apart from him. "Timmy...I'm sorry...I saw your scrapbook, I was reading it, and then when I came in to see you...it just seemed so wrong, that we should both be trapped this way."

"Neither of us had a choice in what was done to us, Abby. So all we can do is go on as best we can. But there's more you want to tell me, isn't there?"

"What's your real name, Timmy?"

"Some unpronounceable Latin mishmash that the Sybil picked for me. It meant Glorious-Avatar-of-some-God-or-another, or something like that."

"No, but you must have had a real name before that, you must have had parents. What did they name you?"

"I don't remember that. The earliest thing I remember from my human life is being a slave. I've used hundreds of names, not one of them truly my own..." Then he asked, "Is Abby your real name?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you change it from time to time, like I do? You think I'm taking a risk with my celebrity and all the public exposure that comes with it. But if you always keep the same name, even if you lay low, try not to let people notice you, doesn't that give a clue if anybody is trying to hunt you down? There's a mysterious new girl in town, and her name is Abby?"

"Yes. I guess so."

"So why do it?"

And that, she knew with certainty. "Because...because it's the only thing I have left, from my human life. The only thing I have left, that my mother and father gave me."

"I see. So to you, it's a risk worth taking."

"Yes."

"All this, the albums and concerts and interviews...it's a risk worth taking to me. Because of what I will have in the end."

_Just say it, before you weaken, before you change your mind_. "I can't go to Los Angeles with you, Timmy, I can't. It's too dangerous, Thomas won't go, he and I should be together, if I go with you then I'm just vampire Abby and nothing more."

"What else would you be, but a vampire?"

"I, that's not exactly it, what I mean is...You like me because I'm like you, we both...are what we are, but I want someone who'll see the human part of me first. As the most important part."

"I told you that I often wanted to be human again, Abby."

"And would you? If you could? If there was some magic spell that could make it happen?"

"I don't know." _Oh Timmy. Wrong answer_. He went on: "Then I would be eunuch boy instead of vampire boy, right? And I still couldn't be completely part of the human world. What about sex? And love? And family? How could I have those things?"

"I don't know, Timmy. I just know...it doesn't seem right, to me. To go with you there, I mean."

"I don't know if you can find what it is you want, Abby...I wish I could help... But then...are we still friends?"

She did hug him, then, and after a brief moment of surpise in which he stiffened, she felt him relax, and return the embrace. Abby felt a huge grin spread across her face. "Of course we are!" She felt relief wash over her - after her fears that Timmy would reject her if she didn't go with him, could it really be this simple?

"Want to play with my trains?"

She did. Timmy showed her the controls, and they took turns running the train back and forth, and at some point Rudy cam into the room. He stood there for some minutes without speaking, looking at them playing, and after a while he turned again and left.

When she realized it was time for her to go, and Timmy had called Rudy in to take her down to the car and drive her back again, she simply said "Be careful, Timmy. I think it's very dangerous for you, now."

"I'll be fine. Abby, will you give me an address? Where I can write to you?"

She and Thomas did have an address, of course. They needed it, for correspondence like bills, although of course they used it as little as possible. Thomas will be mad. But I have to be able to keep in touch with him, just to talk, to talk about all these things I can't seem to talk about with Thomas anymore, or with anyone else. She told him the address, and he repeated it, memorizing it. Then he gave her a post office box address in Los Angeles. "My private box. If you write, it won't get mixed up and lost in all the fan mail."

"Thanks Timmy. So - what are you going to do now? Where are you going to next?"

"LA, for a little bit. Then on with the tour - I 'll be winding up in New York soon, and I'll probably stay there a while. We have a townhouse, in Manhattan."

"Write to me soon? Tell me about what you're doing?"

"I will. In fact, when I'm in New York, I'm going to find a good psychotherapist."

"What?" She thought he was joking again. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. I want to find those memories that I've lost, they're the key. To understanding what happened to me, and why I can feel human emotion again after so long without it. Maybe these new doctors of the mind can help. I've been researching it, I think I want to try."

"You'd have to tell the therapist what you are, wouldn't you?" _Timmy...it's more risk_.

"Yeah...and they'd probably think I'm crazy, a child star driven over the edge, but a...demonstration would convince them. And if I'm right, I think I can find one that would jump at such a unique opportunity. _They'd_ have to keep the secret, too, or everyone would think _they'd_ gone crazy."

Then she hugged him again, and he returned it more fully, more relaxed this time, and then she and Rudy were headed down to the car. This time she made little conversation with him on the way home, lost in her thoughts and hopes about what the future might bring. But she did guide Rudy almost all the way to the house; she had given Timmy the address, anyway, so it didn't seem like some urgent security breach. And then she was home again, or as much home as any place had been for her since she had been changed, and Thomas was waiting up for her, and questioned her about what had happened, and then began to prepare for the coming day as Abby hid herself away from the Sun.

The first letter from Timmy came several days later, postmarked from Los Angeles. It was more a package, really, with something flat and stiff inside. Thomas handed it to her with an irrittated look when he returned with the mail, but said nothing; they had had the argument, and she had won. Again. He hovered nearby, obviously waiting for her to open it, so she retreated to her room and closed the door.

It was a promotional photo of Tiimy in his vampire costume, sitting on a coffin, gazing at the camera with a soulful, meaningful look. The white shirt with the puffy sleeves and collar, the black dress pants and shoes, and the red-lined cape made him look for all the world like Dracula Junior, as if he had stepped straight out of a Hammer Films vampire picture. From his mouth protruded two neat straight white fangs. At the bottom of the picture Timmy had written:

_You know the teeth are fake, right?_

Abby had to laugh at that, it was so absurd, of course they were fake plastic fangs straight from a mall gift shop. The picture was of a vampire boy pretending to be a live boy pretending to be a vampire, and the layers of deception really were amusing. Timmy's staff had probably mailed a million of these out to eager fans. She found some paper and a pen, sat down and started to write, and a new thought suddenly occured to her: I have a pen pal. An actual friend.

_Dear Timmy -_

_I loved your picture and am keeping it in my room - although I don't quite have the nerve to tape it to the wall. I hope you have fun at your next show and that you find what you're looking for in New York..._

The next letter came from New York, a couple of weeks later, where he had said he would be staying for a while.

_I have found a therapist, a Jungian psychoanalyst. Do you know what that is? They speak of archetypes, of universal images from the collective unconscious of the human race. With these holes in my memory, sometimes it makes me even wonder if I am real, or if I am some projection of the subconscious fears and fantasies of humans, or if I started off as a real boy but have now become a creation of the human mind, the primeval fear of the night...well, I guess that sounds pretty crazy, huh? But I've been observing the human race a long, long time, and it does make you think._

The next was not nearly so philosophical, but it gave her even more concern.

_I have met another one like us here in New York. Her name is Kitty Burns. I met her 60 years ago in England, and now she is here! She was working as a prostitute on the street (she looks like she's about 17, and that makes her very popular with many men). I asked her to come to L.A. with me and she agreed. _

_Dr. Rubens is now quite convinced of what I am, and I was right - she is too curious to be scared, she knows this is a unique chance for her. I think that maybe I am the first vampire ever to get psychotherapy._

Abby had started getting used to this friendship-by-letter; it was nothing she had ever experienced before, and she was delighted by it, afraid as she had been that Timmy would simply reject her if she did not go with him. Now she felt something else curious, something it took her a lot of thinking to figure out, because it was an emotion that she realized she had not experienced in decades: jealousy. _He found somebody else already? _Then:_ But that's not fair of you, is it, Abby? You told him no._

But she did not let Timmy know any of this in her next letter to him; she simply wrote

_...be careful of revealing too much, to too many. Timmy, there are so few of us, and it has been so long since I had any kind of friend. I hope this Kitty is good to you, I hope that she feels the same things we do..._

Now the letters came directly from Los Angeles; Timmy was back there for the summer, until a Fall encore tour for _Vampire Junction _that would be followed immediately by the release of his fourth album, _Funhouse_.

_...Dr Rubens says I am making very good progress. I think she is frustrated that she can't ever write this up for a confernece or journal, something like 'Memory retrieval and psychotherapy with undead clients', or something like that. Anyway, I remember more about France now: a place name - Tiffauges. And I remember standing at the edge of the forest, in the night, and seeing a dark castle far on the horizon. There is a man there, a human, but the peasants speak of him with fear. I am curious abut him, and have decided to go there. But who he is, and why they are afraid, I haven't gotten that back yet_.

_Pompeii, too; I remember a man called the Persian, coming to the Sybil's cave at night. He had sharp teeth (you know what I mean) and I was frightened of him, but he had the Sybil sell me to him, and she and I then traveled at night to his townhouse in Pompeii. They had known each other long before, it seems, and talked about their immortality and how they were both tired of it. She was old, really old, you know, but not a vampire; she could go out in the day, and she aged slowly, but she was really shrunken up and withered and tiny by then. He had a plan, but I don't remember that part yet..._

_...you should get to to the nearest arcade and try my video game, Bloodsucker. It's really cool. The video game company screwed us on the contract, though; the profits are a 60/40 split (that's 60 for them). I don't think Rudy read the fine print close enough (he's actually my legal guardian, you know, for tax and business purposes)..._

That same night, Thomas brought home something disconcerting: a gossip tabloid from the supermarket. He simply handed it to her with a smug I-told-you-so look on his face. One of the headlines on the front page was _Timmy Valentine Secret Illness? _She quickly flipped to the article, in alarm.

_...an anonymous source close to Timmy Valentine revealed the information. "I was on his first tour, and then didn't see him again until his last concert in New York, when I was part of the stage crew again. And he hadn't grown! Not one inch! I think he's maybe got one of those metabolism or hormone disorders, there's something wrong with his body, and it's being kept secret." Our source also revealed another unusual fact to support his claim. "I think he's on some kind of special diet. No one on that first tour ever saw him eat or drink anything. And he wasn't doing it at this last concert either."_

The next night, she headed straight to the arcade; it was the only one in their small town. She made sure to dress appropriately again (shoes!). The beeps and whirrs and poings and explosions and gunfire were easily audible to her hearing from several blocks away as she approached. Inside, it was easy to spot the new game; there was a small crowd of boys and girls clustered hear it. "Tell me again how it works, Jimmy!" one of them called to the boy currently at the controls.

'Okay, okay,' the teenager at the game controls laughed. 'You're Timmy Valentine, and you're a vampire, see? You have to keep jumping between trains as they go from station to station, and suck the blood from the people one ach train to get points, but you can't attack them when they get off at a station. And these guys, the Van Helsings, are chasing you with stakes all the time, right? So if they catch you, they stake you, and you're dead. But if you're on the train when it goes through a vampire junction, your powers get charged up even more, and you can attack the Van Helsings.'

His character was dashing down a train as a Van Helsing came from behind. Another one began closing from the front, but he tapped the joystick and the electronic Timmy leaped from the train onto another heading the opposite way. Another Van Helsing, wielding a stake, was already on the second train. He slapped the joy stick to make Timmy spin away from the new threat, but too late. The van Helsing slammed the stake into his chest, and the vampire boy suddenly crumbled into dust, as if aging centuries in instants. An electronic wind swirled across the screen and scattered the dust. 'Aww, man' the boy moaned in frustration, slapping the controls again.

Abby had seen enough; she turned and left.

_Oh Timmy. You probably think the game is hilarious. Why must you go on doing this? Thomas was right - you're jumping around saying 'Look at me!' to anybody who knows that vampires are real. This can't end well. It's time to stop being the rock star, the celebrity_. She knew these were the things she would write in her next letter to him.

Behind her, in the arcade, yellow pac-man fled from monsters as they desperately gobbled up dots, rushing down long corridors. In the end, the monsters always won. At the G_alaga_ game, starfighters blasted constantly at unending swarms of aliens that swooped onto the screen. In the end, the aliens always won. At the _Bloodsucker_ game, an electronic Timmy Valentine raced up and down trains attacking victims as ever-increasing numbers of Van Helsings chased after him.

In the end, the hunters always won.

She clipped the tabloid article and mailed it to him with her next letter. _I don't think this Kitty girl is doing anything to restrain him_. And Timmy's reply brought a fresh surge of shock and fear, fear for him and the thought of losing this friend.

_...they came to the mansion - well, just one of them. He apparently waited until he saw Rudy and I leave late in the day, then slipped in through the driveway gate before it closed._

_You should know that Kitty has been careless - well, more like reckless, because she has done this on purpose. She has been attacking people, not just alone but in groups, she even killed a small group of surfers on an otherwise-deserted stretch of beach last week. She turned some of her victims and brought them back to the mansion. So I didn't know what else to do, we set them up with rooms upstairs, and I was trying to feed them from my own kills so they wouldn't go off and start more attacks._

_The hunter got up to the third floor and killed all of them, except for Kitty - she awoke just before he could get to her. It was the same old story, revenge - his niece had been turned (by me, accident, long story), and had apparently appeared to him and asked him to kill her, she couldn't bear the thought of becoming a vampire. Kitty wanted to kill him but I let him go, I felt sorry for him._

_Dear God_, she thought. _Kitty making more vampires? A hunter attacking Timmy's mansion? Timmy, your life is spinning out of control. Can't you see that?_ And then: _If I had gone with him, that could have been me dying in that attack_.

In his reply to her letter, Timmy simply said everything was under control, Kitty was more restrained now (apparently both angered and chastened by the attack on the mansion), anyway Rudy was keeping a close eye on her. Dr. Rubens was sure they were close to some important breakthroughs in his memory therapy, and soon he would start the lead-in tour to his _Funhouse_ album.

_Chicago is on the tour. Please come see me again. I will make sure you can get in backstage just by saying you're Abby from Indiana_.

He also said that he had just bought a vacation home, a rambling big old house, in a small town called Junction. In Idaho. _I suspect I may need this place, if certain events happen_, he (rather cryptically) wrote. Abby retrieved their somewhat worn copy of the _National Geographic Atlas _and scoured the map of Idaho until she found it, just a tiny dot, with a population of only a few hundred listed in the index. From the name, she suspected a train line or lines must once have come together there. It sounded like the sort of place Timmy might want for a hideaway.

It was now late September, and the concert rapidly approached. Timmy was incommunicado for a while, busy, she supposed, with finishing the album and starting his encore tour. The night of the concert Thomas muttered under his breath, and finally suggested that she was putting them both in danger again, the boy was a fool, sticking his neck out like that, he was painting a sign on his chest that said "Put stake here." She listened, and ignored him, and went on her way. She found that she couldn't disagree with a word he said, and somehow that made her mad at him for saying it.

The crowd girls at hte backstage entrance included a lot of middle school grooupies, it seemed. A number of them sneered not-so-subtly at her plain and worn clothes; many of them managed to be appear both fashionable and scantily clad, clearly hoping to be the one to catch Timmy's eye if he happened to appear. The gasps were quite audible when she marched up to the bakstage door, spoke quietly to the security staff there, and was whisked inside.

A security guard escorted her straight to Timmy's dressing room, and when she knocked and heard his voice saying 'Come in' she found a sudden thrill shoot through her, simply hearing his voice in person after so many months. When she stepped inside Timmy was just finishing buttoning up a neatly tailored white jacket over a black dress shirt, the collar and cuffs standing out in startling contrast to his pale skin. "Hi, Abby!" he said cheerfully.

Then, standing to one side, she saw another vampire - a girl who appeared to be in her late teens, brown hair and dark eyes. It had to be Kitty Burns. "Uh - hi - you must be Kitty", Abby forced out.

"And of course you are Abby - Timmy thinks so highly of you", the girl replied, in an accent that sounded vaguely English. Abby found that she liked neither her tone of voice nor the cool contempt she thought she felt in the other girl's gaze. She had a feeling that this was not going to go well.


End file.
